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I’m still keeping my Indian identity a secret. I’m still keeping secret what I think no one should know. Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many books they have, can find out all our secrets.

These words close I, Rigoberta Menchú, and they are the last we hear from Rigoberta. Her reference to anthropologists is a reminder of the constant presence of Burgos-Debray in the preparation of the work. Throughout the autobiography, Rigoberta tells her story with remarkable candidness. Here, however, she reveals that she has selectively divulged information about her identity, which gives her the final authority and raises the question of what she held back in her story. The exact nature of her relationship with Burgos-Debray is also unclear. In the introduction to I, Rigoberta Menchú, Burgos-Debray conveyed her relationship with Rigoberta as being extremely collegial, even familial, because the two shared a Latin heritage. Yet Rigoberta’s closing words contradict the sense that she bonded with Burgos-Debray and instead casts the impression that perhaps Rigoberta didn’t trust Burgos-Debray to the extent that Burgos-Debray claimed in her introduction. This serves as a reminder that Quiché might perceive their relationship with those who are outside of their community, whether they are ladinos, Europeans, or Americans, differently than do those outsiders.

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